Grants Manager

Core Responsibilities

1. Grant Portfolio Management and Tracking

• Manage an assigned portfolio of government, foundation, corporate, and other grants, maintaining a comprehensive grant calendar with award dates, deliverables, reporting deadlines, reimbursement requirements, spending timelines, renewal opportunities, and closeout dates.
•  Develop and maintain grant tracking tools, dashboards, and status reports that provide leadership with a clear view of grant performance, remaining balances, expenditures, deliverables, reporting status, and emerging risks.
•  Monitor grant implementation from award through closeout and proactively identify missed deadlines, under-spending, overspending, documentation gaps, compliance concerns, and other issues requiring corrective action.
•  Coordinate with program leads and other responsible staff to establish workplans, milestones, deliverables, and accountability timelines for each grant.
•  Maintain complete and organized electronic grant files, including award agreements, amendments, budgets, invoices, receipts, reports, supporting documentation, correspondence, and closeout records.

1. Project Management and Internal Accountability

• Lead grant-related project management activities, translating award requirements into clear internal workplans, assignments, timelines, and deliverables.
•  Coordinate cross-functional teams to ensure program, finance, operations, and development activities remain aligned with grant commitments and organizational priorities.
•  Schedule and facilitate grant check-ins as needed; document action items, owners, deadlines, and follow-up requirements to keep work moving forward.
•  Establish and monitor systems for collecting required programmatic and financial information       
• from staff, vendors, and partners.
•  Escalate barriers and risks to the Deputy Executive Director and other appropriate leaders with recommended solutions and corrective actions.

1. Financial Management and Grant Budget Oversight

•  Monitor grant budgets and expenditures in coordination with Finance, ensuring spending is allowable, reasonable, properly allocated, adequately documented, and consistent with approved grant budgets and funding restrictions.
•  Track budget-to-actual spending, remaining balances, burn rates, and spending projections;    

            identify variances and recommend adjustments or reforecasting when needed.

•   Review grant-related expenses, receipts, invoices, payroll allocations, and supporting documentation for completeness and alignment with grant requirements before reporting or reimbursement submissions.
• Coordinate government and other reimbursement requests, ensuring all required documentation is complete, accurate, organized, and submitted by established deadlines.
• Support development of grant budgets, budget narratives, revisions, amendments, financial reports, and forecasting tools.
• Partner with Finance to reconcile grant activity and resolve discrepancies between accounting records, grant tracking systems, and program records.

1. Grant Compliance, Reporting, and Risk Management

• Monitor compliance with grant agreements, funding restrictions, reporting requirements, procurement requirements, documentation standards, and applicable organizational policies and procedures.
•  Maintain a grant compliance calendar and ensure required narrative, performance, financial, and reimbursement reports are completed accurately and submitted on time.
• Coordinate the collection, review, and organization of programmatic outcomes, participant data, financial information, receipts, invoices, and other documentation needed for grant reporting.
• Conduct routine reviews of grant files and supporting documentation to identify gaps before reporting, reimbursement, monitoring visits, or audits.
•  Support responses to funder questions, monitoring requests, audits, desk reviews, and site visits and maintain records of corrective actions when applicable.

1. Reporting, Data, and Continuous Improvement

• Develop recurring grant status reports for leadership that summarize accomplishments, spending, reporting status, upcoming deadlines, risks, and actions needed.
• Use data and tracking systems to identify trends in grant spending, program deliverables, reimbursement activity, and reporting performance.
•  Improve grant management processes, templates, checklists, dashboards, and documentation systems to increase accountability, efficiency, and organizational visibility.
• Maintain accurate records in grant management, financial, CRM, and other organizational systems as applicable.

1. Communication and Cross-Department Collaboration

•  Serve as a central point of coordination for grant-management activities across Operations, Finance, Development, and Program teams.
• Provide staff with clear guidance regarding grant requirements, deadlines, documentation standards, and reporting expectations.
•  Communicate proactively, professionally, and consistently with internal stakeholders, funders, partners, and vendors as appropriate.
• Build strong working relationships while maintaining accountability for deadlines, documentation, and deliverables.

Required Qualifications

•  Bachelor's degree in Nonprofit Management, Business Administration, Public Administration, Finance, Project Management, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• At least 5 years of progressive experience in grant management, project management, nonprofit operations, finance, or a closely related field, preferably with responsibility for managing multiple grants simultaneously.
• Demonstrated experience managing grant portfolios, tracking deliverables and deadlines, and maintaining systems that support accountability and compliance.
• Strong financial acumen, including experience with budgets, budget-to-actual analysis, expenditure tracking, forecasting, reconciliations, and financial reporting.
• Demonstrated project management skills, including work planning, milestone tracking, cross-functional coordination, issue resolution, and follow-through.
• Strong working knowledge of government and foundation grant processes, including post-award management, reimbursement, reporting, and closeout requirements.
• Advanced organizational skills with exceptional attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, and funding requirements without losing accuracy.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills, with the ability to identify risks, interpret financial and programmatic information, and recommend solutions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to communicate complex requirements clearly to program, finance, and leadership staff.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, and the ability to learn and effectively use grant management, financial, CRM, and project-tracking systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing federal, state, county, or municipal grants and reimbursement-based funding.
•  Experience with government reimbursement systems and supporting documentation requirements.
•  Experience working with nonprofit accounting or financial systems and reconciling grant activity to general ledger records.
• Experience developing grant dashboards, tracking matrices, or other management reporting tools.
• Experience supporting audits, monitoring visits, desk reviews, or funder compliance reviews.
• Project Management Professional (PMP), Grants Management, or related certification is a plus.

Success in This Role

The successful Grants Manager will be a strong manager of information, deadlines, people, and processes. This individual will not simply collect grant documents or submit reports; they will actively manage the grant portfolio, monitor financial and programmatic performance, create visibility for leadership, hold internal stakeholders accountable to commitments, and identify issues early enough to address them. Success requires sound judgment, strong financial understanding, disciplined follow-through, and the ability to translate complex grant requirements into clear action plans.

Salary

$65,000

How to Apply

Please email a resume and cover letter to careers@forcedetroit.org with the subject line: Grants Manager.

FORCE Detroit is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, arrest or conviction record, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status

How to Apply

Please email a resume and cover letter to careers@forcedetroit.org with the subject line: Grants Manager.